Autumn Leaves
by GreenGreyBlack
Summary: She deserved eternal beauty, eternal youth, even at his expense.


_**Check out Andy William's version of the song (Autumn Leaves) so beautiful in every way.**_

* * *

_**Autumn Leaves**_

_Stark tower was brewing with Life and Light, thanks to Tony's Surprise Bachelor party for the good old captain. Alcohol flowing through, like a waterfall, all kinky music, all dancing and women plus no Pepper to damage control._

_He had to make an appearance, despite that every fibre of his being was being shredded, despite that every fibre of his being was against it._

"_Hey, Barton" _

"_Hey, Stark"_

_Barton scanned the room for his fellow team mates, all absorbed into partying._

_Bruce passed out, Steve drunk like hell, surrounded by Ladies whom he tells about his war heroics, and Thor Smashing and gobbling poptarts, Classical Hang over._

"_Seems you succeeded into ruining the team's manners, Stark" snarked Barton._

"_Always a pleasure corrupting innocent maidens" Tony sarcastly replied_

_Right now, none of the good guys seemed innocent at all. _

* * *

_He didn't stay much. During the huddle and muddle, He withdrew himself easily from the party down there, to the roof of the tower._

_It has been 5 years, 5 years since the Frost prince decided to claim Natasha as his own, 5 years since she decided to pay off her debt._

"_Why the hell did you do that Natasha?" the question to the day resonates in his mind._

_He knows why._

_He spends the rest of the night out there, the Autumn frost biting at him, he spends it out there, staring at the sky as though it would magically disclose the answer to where Natasha was, as if by any mean he'd see her through, as if she might unexpectedly descend to him from whatever realm she was in._

* * *

_The faint morning light accompanied by Pepper's yelling drove him out from his slumber on the rooftop, he stared at the sky one more time and drank its grey with his eyes, he stared and prayed his heart out that she is alive somewhere, even if not with him._

"_We are sorry, Clint" their voices shook him out of his pensive mood._

_Tony, Thor, Bruce and Steve were dragging their feet towards him (all hangover stricken), a look of pure guilt and shame dangling from their eyes ._

"_It totally slipped our mind" said Bruce_

"_I know it wasn't intentional, she was your teammate as well"_

"_Of course, had it not been for that idiot" Steve motioned towards Stark "we are so sorry the party coincided with the anniversary of her departure, Clint"_

"_Any news, Thor?"_

_The guy didn't respond, he diverted his gaze to the ground, as usual._

_The air between them was thick, Thor had beaten himself up over what happened to the pair and Clint kind of hated the fact Loki was his brother, so they kept a distance, tiptoed around each other._

"_You should have hinted at it, Barton, you just showed up all smiles and ….." Bruce nudged Tony; a gesture he wasn't helping by blaming Clint about being a good friend while they were totally inconsiderate._

"_Fine, I am sorry, Barton" Tony said, trying to sound as serious and as sincere as he could be._

"_No problem, besides I am sure that Pepper would avenge me quite as should be" he tried to lighten the mood for inspite of their efforts, they weren't helping, not in the slightest._

* * *

_It is autumn, the dusk sky is grey, the frost setting in, and the air crisp and chilly._

_He could here his footsteps echoing against the falling golden leaves._

_He could hear his heart break along with the dry leaves._

_It was raining._

_Just like Budapest._

_It was weird, the amount of memories they had together, those which seemed to poke their heads at him every moment of every day especially during the autumn._

_He met her in Autumn,_

_He fell in love with her in Autumn,_

_Their favourite season prior was Autumn,_

_She'd told him that his eyes resembled the rainy nights of autumn._

_She left him in Autumn._

_Loki put down the terms plain and simple: Natasha leaves with him or his mind would remain forever enslaved until one of them takes the other down._

_This time it was easy, he was coming for a personal reason, all focused onto avenging his wounded pride, all focused onto taking the smart feisty woman for himself._

_She tried every other alternative to bring him back, never the less, this time, Loki was powerful, more powerful than both of them._

_So she sealed the deal and evened out her debt._

_What pained the most was they didn't even say good bye._

_He returned to himself only to find her gone, with a note stating that she paid out her debt and that he should live and go on._

_How did she expect it to be that easy?_

_At that point he felt useless, the most vulnerable of the team._

_He felt like a waste of space._

_Thor returned to Asgard, tried to track them down, fruitless however, they were off to another realm._

* * *

_Autumn, Two years after,_

_Bruce and Betty were married,_

_Steve and Hill were expecting,_

_Tony's son was a little over a year,_

_Thor's half midgardian son was 6 months old whilst his full asgardian was a year and a half._

_Loki was channelling another attack on earth, allied with the remnants of the chituries and the frost giants._

_A flicker of hope ignites, maybe she would come with him._

_Throughout the battles, he doesn't come across her._

_In the end, he is rendered deaf._

_Loki was Gone._

_He sits on his bench (it has become his seven years ago) in central park, the hearing Aid transmitting shadows of sounds, he is off duty for the time being._

_He can no longer hear the leaves falling to the ground,_

_He no longer hears their rustle with the wind, _

_He no longer hears them breaking under his footstep._

_His catches a one resonating sound he thought would never hear._

_He adjusts his aids, thinking they might be flawed somehow._

"_no, they aren't" he hears her clearly, pitch perfect._

_She stands before him, dressed in white, looking exactly the same when left, an aesthetic authentic beauty except with an air of melancholy shadowing over her._

_He had developed a few wrinkles over the course of the years, yet she didn't._

_She looked as though she was frozen in time._

"_Seven years Barton and you don't have anything to say"_

_He doesn't say anything, he just crushes her into an embrace, savouring in Natasha, savouring in his partner, his friend, his beloved._

"_Life hasn't been good to you, I see"_

"N_ot since you left"_

"_I know, I could see you from out there"_

"_How have you been doing?"_

"_I have seen better days"_

"_How has been treating you?"_

"_Not bad, sure he is a psycho, yet we kind of grew accustomed, he is more like the cold Russian type"_

"_come on, we should take you to S.H.I.E.L.D.S. before he comes after you"_

"_I can't, Clint"_

"_What?" he asks incredulously_

"_I owe him a debt"_

"_The same you owed me" he asked, hurt dripping from his voice_

"N_o, I owe him this"_

_She removes the hearing aids, and he could hear the whispers of the trees against the wind, the quiet murmur, the sound of the falling leaves, once more._

"_See you, Clint" she whispers into his ears, before swiftly leaving him again._

_She knocked on the doors of rain in the sky before she left._

_She knocked on the doors of rain behind his grey glassy eyes as well._

_Now rain is pouring from both doors._

* * *

_Autumn, ten years later,_

_For the last 17 years he was sort of the loner in the field, _

_He was never teamed up with any one else._

_Age has gotten the best of him, of all of the avengers._

_They scarcely do field work now._

_He remembers her still, more like an angel, frozen in time, frozen in memory._

_He wonders if Loki turned her into one._

_She deserved eternal beauty, eternal youth, even at his expense._

_Yet, he knew it wasn't his expense, it was hers._

_It was just compensation._

_He spends the Autumn evenings in the park, despite the biting cold,_

_He stares in the sky and waits for her star to twinkle, every year it does, on the day she left him._

_He still loves the Autumn, despite the sorrow it beholds,_

_Because in the autumn, he misses her most. _


End file.
